There is a legend that when Christian missionaries arrived in Russia in the 10th or 9th century AD, the King of Russia had to choose which faith his people would be baptized into. He carefully studied all the aspects of each branch of Christianity (and also some other religions) and then, it is said, he said something like “The joy of living in Russia is in drinking (alcohol).” and then he chose Orthodox Christianity as they drink in their rituals. I am not sure if this a true story or a legend, but it’s a pretty well known story. So here is a set of photos of Russian people and vodka.

First we’ll have a few hundred-year-old posters about why drinking is bad and then we’ll have plenty of vintage photos of people drinking.

Basically, even in Tsarist Russia drinking vodka was considered to be a poor habit. You can see these colorful posters that were used to try to convince people to stop drinking (probably without any result). In this first poster, you can see a few main consequences the authors were attributing to drinking: “ruining the economy”, “drinking till hallucinations”, “death without repentance”. Also: “drinking brings you to misfortune and beggary”, “makes you a thief”, “makes you pawn last belongings” (you can see a guy bringing a wheel to a drinking shop), and “creates family conflicts”. You can see all of them depicted.

Also, a sort of comparison of a drinker and non drinker. The non drinker is obviously on the left. He is pretty cool looking and tidy, his house is full of joy and plenty of food, everyone seems to be working and the house looks awesome from outside. The drinker has a red nose, his heart and liver are discolored and more things happening to him, also his horse seems like it is not feeling well. (Why the horse??)

In Finland we have a saying that roughly translates as “everyone has his own taste”. In my opinion the Rakija, Ouzo and what-ever-moonshine-flavoured-with-anis is horrible. I prefer good quality votka and I must say the Russians know how to do (and drink) that stuff.

Picture might have been taken during the Boxer Rebellion of 1900.
American used to drink pretty heavily in the 18th and 19th centuries. In some parts of the country they still do (moonshine), but booze has been supplemented by meth.